Do you ever find a house or a building inexplicably intriguing? I do, and there’s something about this particular one in Yeniköy that never fails to stimulate my curiosity. As usual it’s not a single feature, but a collection of attributes that ignite my wonder. I love the combination of stone and wood, the chipped paint. It’s obviously fallen a bit into disrepair, but it still has a certain dignified beauty, or romance to it if you ask me. There are many bigger, grander houses, but there’s something special about this one. There’s also its placement. Perched high above the Yeniköy boulevard, up above the traffic at the top of a winding step that leads to a church gate. It’s beside a much taller, grander konak. And though it’s surrounded by beauty, there’s a certain sense of loneliness, a sense of distance this house has. It makes me wonder if whoever dwelled within was happy or isolated. It’s a house I can’t help but look at from the outside and try to imagine backward through time. From what I’ve gathered it’s about 220 years old and originally Greek (like much of Yeniköy), and was once a hotel/han and perhaps a wine tavern. Now it seems to be someone’s slightly decrepit home. It seems to me that even long after they’ve left a building like this, something of each resident maybe even each guest remains with it. You can feel it in the wood, in the stone. An echo, a vibration, a faint breath of life. I’m sure its been the setting for many dramas, and many lives. It tells a story, don’t you think? 4

The Hill House

Do you ever find a house or a building inexplicably intriguing? I do, and there’s something about this particular one in Yeniköy that never fails to stimulate my curiosity. As usual it’s not a single feature, but a collection of attributes that ignite my wonder. I love the combination of stone and wood, the chipped paint. It’s obviously fallen a bit into disrepair, but it still has a certain dignified beauty, or romance to it if you ask me. There are many bigger, grander houses, but there’s something special about this one.

There’s also its placement. Perched high above the Yeniköy boulevard, up above the traffic at the top of a winding step that leads to a church gate. It’s beside a much taller, grander konak. And though it’s surrounded by beauty, there’s a certain sense of loneliness, a sense of distance this house has. It makes me wonder if whoever dwelled within was happy or isolated.

It’s a house I can’t help but look at from the outside and try to imagine backward through time. From what I’ve gathered it’s about 220 years old and originally Greek (like much of Yeniköy), and was once a hotel/han and perhaps a wine tavern. Now it seems to be someone’s slightly decrepit home.

It seems to me that even long after they’ve left a building like this, something of each resident maybe even each guest remains with it. You can feel it in the wood, in the stone. An echo, a vibration, a faint breath of life.

I’m sure its been the setting for many dramas, and many lives. It tells a story, don’t you think?